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Fewer than half of healthcare organizations participating in a recent survey are currently using C&BI tools. But HIMSS Analytics anticipates that the shift to value-based care and predictive and prescriptive analytics technologies could change that soon.

Providers poised to ratchet up spending on clinical and business intelligence tools, HIMSS Analytics says

Fewer than half of healthcare organizations utilize a clinical and business intelligence tool for analytics and a high percentage are unsure about plans to make future investments in these platforms, according to the HIMSS Analytics 2016 Clinical and Business Intelligence Essentials Brief.

“There's certainly a lot of opportunity for C&BI adoption in the market today, however adoption will not happen overnight,” said HIMSS Analytics Director of Research Brendan FitzGerald. “The IT infrastructure has been laid so the ramp up may not take as long, but there's the potential for significant growth in this solution category in the next three to five years.”

That appears probable, given the upward trajectory of organizations with plans to invest in clinical and business intelligence tools in the future, according to the report.

Fitzgerald added that robust C&BI tools are currently available, so whether now is the time to invest will likely depend more on a particular healthcare organization’s ability to make the data actionable than any technological issues.

"Many organizations that have adopted C&BI solutions are still in the early stages of descriptive and diagnostic analytics," FitzGerald said. "Much like their need for strategy and guidance on how to best use their clinical systems, they'll need that same focused effort around data governance to increase the level of analytics maturity as they move toward predictive and prescriptive analytics."